NAMESAKES

After college, during an almost seven year stretch, I would retreat every weekend into market stalls. The majority of my free time was spent digging through barns full of farmhouse finds, cases of jewelry, dusty auction houses, and roadside sales.

At the time, I simply thought I was seeking out furnishings for my own little home. Little did I realize that I was acquiring the merchandise I'd use to officially open my own brick-and-mortar shop in late 2007. But before I could open, there was a problem I needed to overcome...

... I didn't know what to name it.

The new shop had been in the works for weeks. The previous tenant was moving from the space in order to expand. In the meantime, I busily sketched out displays, priced merchandise, and plotted out one to-do list after another. All the while, as often happens in your hometown, when news get out, it tends to spread.

I kept rattling my brain for something to call it and filled a notebook with dozens of possibilities.

Nothing felt right.

Yet this nameless, unopened, on-a-whim shop was gaining buzz. Everyone was talking about it. My family, co-workers, friends --- even two strangers that I overheard discussing it at the supermarket!

Oddly enough, all of them kept calling it the same thing.

Adair's shop.

Eventually I stopped fighting the thought that it had to be something different and Alice Adair was born.

Fast forward a few years, after several different locations and changes, and I made a key addition to the shop name --- & Co --- because the shop is about so much more than just being mine.

Remember that saying from the 90's about it taking a village to raise a child? Well, let me tell you, it takes a company to make a shop possible. My mother. My grit-and-glam sister, Jodi and her dad, Sam. My chalk painting maven Joeleen. The local artisans. The loving and loyal customers. You.